Chapter 23: Cheng Liang, Did You Eat Fish Last Night?

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By the time Duan Chengliang finished work and returned to the duty room, he collapsed onto the wooden bench, his whole body practically boneless.

Old Feng had represented the coal yard’s loading crew at a meeting in the factory that afternoon, perfectly avoiding the day’s feast of hard labor.

When he came back from the meeting and saw Duan Chengliang’s condition, he asked with a grin, “Good heavens, what wore you out so badly today?”

Under ordinary circumstances, a string of filthy jokes would certainly have followed. But ever since last time, Old Feng had become much more proper in his speech. This time, his question sounded like a genuinely sincere expression of concern.

Duan Chengliang replied weakly, “I really drew the short straw this afternoon. The First Steel Rolling Mill in the northern suburbs sent trucks over to haul coal from our yard.”

Old Feng understood at once. The outside factories always sent heavy trucks to collect coal. Their beds were high, so loading them was far more strenuous than loading the smaller trucks and little trains used by their own factory. For the same amount of coal, it took at least half again as much effort.

He secretly congratulated himself on successfully dodging that ordeal, but he could not let it show on his face. He still had to put on a sympathetic expression. For Old Feng, whose acting skills were hardly impressive, that was no small challenge.

Putting on an exaggerated look, Old Feng sighed and said to Duan Chengliang, “At the meeting, the factory passed along the latest directives. There’s going to be an even bigger production drive, with output pushed up again. Sigh... Looks like our work is only going to get heavier from here on out.”

Old Feng shook his head and clicked his tongue repeatedly. Then he pulled a little cloth pouch from his pocket, followed by a sheet of paper, which he took out with great delight.

Duan Chengliang took one glance and knew that Old Feng had once again sneaked some writing paper out of the meeting venue during the afternoon meeting.

Old Feng certainly did not steal paper in order to practice his handwriting. He used it to roll cigarettes. He especially loved rolling them with letter paper. Once, Duan Chengliang had heard him say with great solemnity, “Smoke rolled in letter paper tastes cultured.”

The cloth pouch contained loose tobacco. Some of it was chopped tobacco he had bought himself, mixed with the tobacco he salvaged from discarded cigarette butts. In his own words, it was a blended aroma, a one-of-a-kind specialty found nowhere else in all of Beijing.

Old Feng was far more practiced at rolling cigarettes than at working in the coal yard. From cutting the paper to finishing the roll took almost no time at all. His adhesive was his own saliva. At the end, he would dart out his tongue like a gecko licking up a mosquito, and the cigarette would be sealed.

Once he had finished rolling it, he held it out with exaggerated courtesy, warmly offering one to Duan Chengliang. “Here, Chengliang, have a smoke. This is the real good stuff. It’ll drive away your fatigue.”

Duan Chengliang was nearly sick.

Damn it, did he want me to smoke his spit?

Honestly, people these days had no sense of propriety at all.

When Old Feng saw that Duan Chengliang had refused his generous offer, he shook his head and sighed over the other man’s inability to appreciate fine things. As he smoked his own roll—a harsh, pungent thing that made Duan Chengliang’s nose sting—he gave Duan Chengliang a detailed account of the directives conveyed at the meeting.

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Duan Chengliang could not help sighing inwardly as well. The one thing he found most exasperating was that, having traveled through time, he had not arrived two or three years earlier or later. Why had he landed in 1958 of all years?

This was an era in which ambition far outstripped ability, an era when people dared to say anything and attempt anything.

At present, the greatest impact on Duan Chengliang and the others was the workload. It would probably more than double.

The current workload was already torture for ordinary people. If it doubled again, then everyone would have to speak of dedication. Before long, the coal yard might even produce several model workers and a few iron men.

Duan Chengliang summoned what little strength he had left, went to the bathhouse, and washed himself thoroughly. When he came out, his body felt limp and boneless. As he walked home, his legs wobbled slightly, making him look rather like someone who had spent two straight days and nights struggling away on a kang bed.

As he walked, he thought to himself that once he returned home and finished the head of his cross-peen hammer, he must first strengthen his body again. He had to be fully prepared for the coming campaign to produce vast quantities of steel—and for the punishing workload that would accompany it.

Duan Chengliang entered the courtyard looking utterly listless. He had just passed through the second gate when Third Master Yan stopped him.

Duan Chengliang was eager to get home, fill his stomach, gather his strength, and enter his personal space to forge the cross-peen hammer as quickly as possible so that he could improve his physical strength. Thus, he asked impatiently, “Third Master, what is it? Is something wrong?”

Yan Bugui looked at him with a smile. “Chengliang, you ate fish last night, didn’t you?”

Duan Chengliang nodded.

“It smelled wonderful. You made so much noise in the middle of the night that none of the neighbors could sleep.”

Duan Chengliang had been utterly listless, but those words immediately revived his spirits. He looked at Yan Bugui and said, “Third Master, did I make a racket in your house last night?”

Yan Bugui stared at him. “What would you have been doing in my house? I wouldn’t have let you in, even if you wanted to come.”

“Then was I working in the courtyard?”

Yan Bugui shook his head.

“On what grounds are you saying that I disturbed the neighbors?”

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Yan Bugui smiled. “You were up in the middle of the night stewing fish. It smelled so good that everyone’s mouth watered. Who could sleep through that? Didn’t you disturb the peace?”

Duan Chengliang rolled his eyes. “And whose fault is that? The smell drifted away with the wind. What could I do about it? It’s just like you passing gas—you don’t exactly warn everyone first. All right, I’m going home to rest. I worked myself half to death today, and I don’t have time to stand here chatting nonsense with you. See you around.”

With that, Duan Chengliang turned and headed toward his room, only to be caught and pulled back by Yan Bugui.

“Wait, don’t go! I haven’t finished. Where did you get that fish? You didn’t steal it somewhere, did you? Otherwise, why would you be cooking fish alone in the middle of the night? Anyone could see you were afraid of being found out.”

Duan Chengliang laughed when he heard this, but he was eager to get home and enter the smithy to forge his hammerhead. He truly had no patience to stand there arguing with Yan Bugui.

He pulled Yan Bugui’s hand away and said, “If you have suspicions, turn left when you leave the courtyard and walk to the alley entrance. That’s the police station. Turn right instead, then head south, and you’ll reach the neighborhood office. You can report your concerns to the officials and ask them to investigate. But if you’re going to stand here making baseless accusations, I’ll find a time to take you to the neighborhood office or the police station and report the matter to the authorities myself. Let them judge whether fabricating stories out of thin air and slandering an innocent man counts as a crime.”

This time, Duan Chengliang did not bother with Yan Bugui any further. He waved a hand and staggered back to his room in the eastern wing. The moment he entered, he shut the door tightly and secured the latch.

Who had the time to worry about Yan Bugui? Nothing mattered now except cooking, filling his belly, and getting to work.

Yan Bugui stood there for quite some time, unable to recover from Duan Chengliang’s barrage of words. His head felt dazed.

He was simply unaccustomed to Duan Chengliang behaving and speaking this way. The old Duan Chengliang had been as pliable as dough, easy to shape however one pleased. But how had he suddenly become like this?

At his own doorway, Yan Bugui pretended to prune his flowers with a pair of scissors. In reality, he did not make a single cut for quite some time. His thoughts were entirely focused on Duan Chengliang’s room across the courtyard.

When the fragrance of stewed fish once again began drifting from Duan Chengliang’s room, Yan Bugui had barely smelled it before his mouth began to water.

He could stand it no longer. Clutching the scissors, he prepared to go across and see what was happening.

Just then, Qin Huairu came through the passageway into the front courtyard and headed straight for Duan Chengliang’s room.